[MD] The (Dialogic) Intellectual Level

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
Arlo, does all this mean no one ever had an original idea?

[Arlo]
No. But the idea is constructed (dialogically) through collective participation
(mythos). Or, at the risk of simplification, "We never, in other words, speak
in a vacuum" (Bahktin). This offers an better way of thinking (I'd propose)
than the "individual at war with society" (which, as I have said innumerable
times, is simply a political ploy).

I ended with a two part passage about Dewey, demonstrating that one can hold the
dialogicity of the intellectual level, and see the inseperable nature of the
"individual" and "collective", without "devaluing the individual" (as if often
the charge).